-
USA Hostels, San Diego, USA
This hostel housed a brothel back in late 18th century. People staying in one of their private rooms and the adjacent staff dorm over the past ten years have regularly told stories about the lights going on and off without reason, unexplained breezes and more. That room has since been turned into a bathroom but the stories haven’t ended. In another room since then, one guest felt her leg grabbed only to wake up and find everybody asleep, while two other guests were awoken in another dorm by banging coming from under their bunk. Apparently the banging went on for 15 minutes and started coming from all sides of the room and the ceiling, changing location very quickly.
-
Paddy's Palace, Derry, Northern Ireland
With an address like ‘Asylum Road’, it’s no wonder that this hostel is haunted. So much so that one staff member had to leave. You see, a lot of the time in hostels around the world you’ll find that a lot of the staff are ‘live-in’, which means they live in the hostel as well as work in them. One such staff member was awoken by a man in a black uniform and top hat who resembled Johnny Depp’s version of Willy Wonka. The fact that building was constructed in 1832 to house the Warden of Londonderry Lunatic Asylum probably had something to do with it.
-
HI-Ottawa Jail Hostel, Ottawa, Canada
Centrally located in Canada's capital, HI-Ottawa Jail is sure to deliver a unique overnight experience. Formerly a prison, it was on the hostel’s site that Canada's last public hanging took place when Patrick James Whelan was hung on the eleventh day of the eleventh hour on a gloomy day in February, 1869 for the assassination of Thomas Dárcy McGee, one of the fathers of confederation. Stay here and you can visit death row and the gallows during a jail tour then sleep in a former jail cell. But be wary – it is said that the ghost of Patrick James Whelan walks the corridors to this day!
-
The Pirate Haus Inn and Hostel, St Augustine, Florida, USA
As St Augustine is regarded as the oldest city in America, it is no surprise it has a haunted hostel. The Pirate Haus is located on Treasury Street, and just up the street stood the old Spanish Treasury, to which Robert Searles and his band of pirates would have headed in their raid of 1668. Staff in the hostel have experienced things falling off shelves for no apparent reason. Then other things that wouldn’t have moved in weeks, months would suddenly fall to the floor, sometimes breaking, sometimes not. Other guests have reported seeing strange blue lights in Room 6.
All ghost tours in St Augustine stop outside the Pirate Haus to tell the tale of Estefania de Cigarroa, who ran out of a house with her baby sister in her arms during Searle's Raid, only to be shot for her trouble. Estefania reportedly lived, but her sister died. The house where they lived may have stood on the spot where the hostel is.
There is no doubting that hostels are the most unique form of accommodation in the world. Some are in tree houses, others are on the beach, but with Halloween just around the corner, you may be interested in some of Hostelworld.com's haunted hostels.
